Swiss figure skater Stéphane Lambiel missed an Olympic medal by a hair’s breadth on Thursday.

Lambiel, who was one of Switzerland’s main medal hopes, ended in fourth place, 0.51 points behind bronze medallist, Daisuke Takahashi of Japan.

Gold went to Evan Lysacek of the United States, and silver to the pre-Games favourite, the Russian Yevgeny Plushenko.

Although Lambiel’s points for his artistic skills were his best ever, his performance had contained a lot of technical shortcomings.

“It’s not the performance I would like to have given,” he said afterwards, explaining that he had felt drained of energy. Each jump had been “a battle”, and he had been unable to demonstrate his programme to its best advantage.

Lambiel, who won silver at the Turin Olympics, announced his retirement in 2008 at the age of 23, citing a lingering muscle injury. However, despite continuing pain, he returned to competitive skating in July 2009, saying he was aiming for an Olympic gold.

Asked by journalists about his future now, he said he could not for the moment see beyond “a good night’s sleep”.

swissinfo.ch and agencies

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative